Steel, Soul, and Spirit: Falling Darkness
by Shadow's Forge
Summary: Straas and Szcraa command the Terran-Protoss Alliance Fleet, seeking to destroy all of the dread Thres'nalop. The hunt for Ulreathan's dark soul intensifies as darkness begins to fall...
1. PLEASE READ

Hello, this is Shadow's Forge.

The sequel to Steel, Soul, and Spirit is currently under construction. I have here two chapters, the first chapter and the prologue, which will givereaders a taste of what the future novel will contain.

**However, due to the several other works in progress** (Eternal Warriors, set in the Dynasty/Samurai Warriors universe; Wraiths of Redwall, a Redwall novella; and Dark Horizons, a independent original fiction) _**updates will be nonexistent.**_

I have thus decided that this glimpse into Falling Darkness will be the only view into my novel until it is complete. Upon completion of Falling Darkness, I will delete this story and post the complete novel.

I hope that I will have this completed before the year is up; however, no promises are being made.

Thank you, everyone, for your support and patience.


	2. Prologue: Hunter's Call

**_Steel, Soul, and Spirit: Falling Darkness_**

By

Gregory P. Wong

* * *

**Prologue: Hunter's Call

* * *

**

Fifteen-year old Kaythan Wong smiled goofily. Pretty Raquel Townsend sat next to him on the green hill, looking over the lush grassland of Esperanza. Her thick blond hair seemed to glimmer in the sun, and her brilliant blue eyes flashed. Her mouth arched into a grin equally goofy as his. He and Raquel were close friends, almost to the point of _boyfriend­_-_girlfriend_ close.

She and her family were new to the fringe world of Esperanza. The lush world had been seen as a haven for those seeking to escape the Confederacy's oppression. Nowadays many more immigrants sought to escape the new Terran government, the Dominion.

One thousand people had landed here, years ago, and their modest town had sprung up. Fertile soil provided plenty of nutrients for the various crops, and the bountiful—but not _too_ bountiful—rain nourished the crops of wheat and corn. The town was modest, but he was happy with it. It was all he had ever known, after all.

She smiled back it him. She liked this town, truly.

He had a strange talent at guessing people's thoughts.

"You know, I never thought that I could get used to this place. It's so different seeing actual _ground_. Back on Tarsonis, all you could ever see was concrete and neosteel."

Before coming here, Raquel and her family had lived on Tarsonis. Somehow—Raquel never said how—her dad had gotten a way for them to get off the capital world and get passage to a fringe world. He was lucky that the Townsend family had come here, instead of other planets.

The Townsend family had come here when he was six. He had not paid too much attention to the then five-year old _girl_. But, as years passed and adolescence set in, he began to notice the Raquel was starting to look _very_ pretty. Apparently, she had not thought of him much either. _Thought_.

"And what helped you get used to it?" he asked the girl. He knew the answer, from her mind, but he still wanted to hear it.

"You," she said, completely serious. "I'm not kidding. When I first got here, I knew nothing about farm life. Now I do... 'cause of you."

"Uh... thanks." He smiled his goofy smile again. Raquel broke out into giggles.

"Stop that! I'll have a heart attack if I see that too many times!"

"How 'bout if I do this?" He asked, and proceeded to tickle her. She was twisting on the ground trying to escape his fingers when he heard an alarm coming from the town. That alarm was only triggered in extreme emergencies...

Come on. We better check up on the town."

* * *

When he and Raquel entered the town gates, his parents beckoned at him to get into the house.

"What's wrong? What's going on?" he asked his mom. Raquel's house was on the other side of town, and he wanted to see her off safely.

"Our radar facility detected some incoming starships of some type. We don't know what they are... But we know they don't match anything we've seen..."

"Mom! Can Raquel stay here with us until... whatever..."

"I guess that would be fine. But she had better contact her parents. They'll be very worried if she doesn't come home without their knowing." She motioned to Raquel and handed her a communicator. "Here, use this and call your parents."

As Raquel contacted her parents, he noticed his older brother, Lee, and his dad loading some old hunting rifles with bullets. His eyes widened.

"What's with the guns? You're not expecting trouble, are you?"

"Well, I'll say this Kay," said Lee. "Those falling ships didn't respond to the governor's hails. I think we had better prepare for the worst." Frowning, his older brother reached behind him and fished out two small pistols from a cardboard box. He handed one to him, and another to Raquel, who had finished talking. Her eyes went wide.

"I hope you won't need to use those, but just in case..." Kaythan took the gun, grabbed a handful of bullets from a box, and gave half to Raquel. She looked lost.

"I've... I've never had to fire a gun. I don't know what to do."

"I'll show you how to work it."

The next ten minutes was used to explaining the art of firing to the Tarsonis girl. Then he heard a shot from outside. Then two more. Then someone began to scream.

* * *

Kaythan saw his father rushed towards the window. He could swear that all the color left his father's face. Pale, his dad turned to him and screamed.

"Get out of here! Head towards the storm cellar on the plain! GO!"

His father rushed out the front door, Lee right behind him. His father began firing at something in the street. Kaythan saw Lee freeze up for a second, and then he begin to fire his weapon, too. His father and brother's reports were mixed with the shots of other colonists firing their weapons.

He dashed towards the door, wanting to catch a glimpse of the targets. He took a look at the direction where his brother and brother were firing. He took one look and cried out in horror.

* * *

He, his mother, and Raquel dashed out the back and began running at top speed towards the storm cellar. He was horrified at what he had seen on the street. Then, suddenly, his head began to hurt. Grasping his skull, he stopped. His mother beckoned for him to follow. Shaking his head, he continued on.

Just as they got to the end of the dirt road, _something_ hopped in front of them.

It looked like a dog-sized lizard. A crest rose from the back of its pointy-snouted head. Its front claws were large scythes, and two two-clawed appendages rose from the creature's shoulders. It seemed all spines and muscle and death. Without thinking, he whipped out his pistol and began unloading on the lizard-thing. His first couple of shots went wide. With a screech, the lizard-thing began to hop towards him. At this range he could not miss. His last four shots struck the lizard-thing.

It didn't even slow down.

It leaped at him, missed, and landed on his mother. She screamed. The lizard-thing's scythe-arms were moving at blinding speeds.

He aimed a kick at the lizard-thing and smacked it off her. The lizard-thing flew in an arc, descended, and landed on its feet. It screeched again. Bleeding, the monster leapt at him, its claws reaching.

There was a series of shots. The leaping creature halted in midair, and tumbled backwards, motionless. Raquel, her hands shaking, lowered her pistol.

"Are... are you okay?" she stammered out.

"Yeah, I'm..." He trailed off as he saw his mother's body. It was covered in blood. Her throat had been slashed open by the lizard-thing.

Dead.

He felt like screaming, but his throat couldn't produce any sound. Raquel just stared.

She moved first. She grabbed his shoulder and shook him.

"C'mon. We have to get out of here. Those things could be anywhere."

"She's dead. She's dead," he babbled. She was dead. His mother was dead. His. Mother. Was. Dead.

"Kaythan! I'm sorry. But we have to _move_. Otherwise..." She averted her eyes. She tugged on his shirtsleeve again. "C'mon!"

Wordlessly, he turned away and hugged Raquel as hard as he could. He let go, then began to run towards the fields. Raquel was right behind him. His. Mother. Was. Dead.

* * *

He was getting tired, but they had reached the town gates. He looked behind him. Raquel was huffing beside him. He saw behind him...

Grabbing Raquel's arm, he began to run again. He exited the town, and was greeted with the sight of three young men brandishing various firearms.

"Kaythan! What happened?"

"Run!" he bawled at the three men. They looked puzzled. A sound like arrows flying through the air reached his ears. Then two of the men pitched over, a dozen spines sticking from their bodies. The third man stared down at the corpses, then looked back the way he and Raquel had come. Kaythan looked back too. Snaky, two-armed creatures were slithering towards him. He grabbed Raquel's arm and began to run again as the third survivor opened fire on whatever had launched the needles. After a few seconds of running, he looked back. The one surviving youth was dead, his body riddled with those horrible spikes. As he ran on with Raquel, the ground exploded in front of him. His headache returned in a painful flash.

The snake-monster hissed. Crying out, he dodged to the left. Raquel dodged right. He spun right, and met up with Raquel as she ran off to the right. The snake-monster howled, and began to slither with frightening speed towards them. They screamed.

As they ran through the fields, he suddenly tripped on a rock. He yelled at Raquel to keep on running. After moving a few meters, she stopped and turned around, beckoning to him. She couldn't see the snake-creature begin to open its chest from behind her. His mouth dry, he aimed his pistol. He had only one more shot. It would have to count. He aimed the sights right between the snake-creature's eyes. Letting out his breath, he squeezed the trigger. There was a loud _crack_.

The snake-creature's jaw blew off. It hissed in rage from the painful but non-lethal wound.

The spines launched. He stared in horror.

With a scream, Raquel pitched forward onto her knees. Then she keeled over backwards.

"NO! BY GOD, NO!" he shrieked. He sank to his knees behind her. There was so much blood...

"RAQUEL! RAQUEL!" he cried. She looked pale, but she was still alive.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," he cried, supporting her head.

"It's okay... Ka... Kaythan," Raquel gasped.

"Oh my God. Oh my God!" He could barely see through his tears. "Raquel..."

"Wait... There's one thing before..." She trailed off, and grasped his shirtfront. She pulled him down and kissed him... on the lips. He could taste coppery blood.

"Bye... Kaythan..." said Raquel, and died. She looked so peaceful...

He screamed. And screamed. And screamed some more. His mother, now Raquel, were _gone_. The agony of loss rose up within him, and the pain threatened to overwhelm his senses.

Then he lost consciousness as something struck him in the back of the head.

* * *

_He screamed at the darkness. At the all-consuming shadow. At the evil._

_He could not move his body. He _had_ no body. All he could feel were his thoughts and his memories. The beautiful, smiling visage of Raquel entered his mind. The bloody corpse of his mother followed. His kiss..._

_Then _something_ invaded his mind. There was buzzing, like that of mad insects, as something began to probe his mind. He screamed at the violation of his psyche. Memories from long ago were beginning to play in his head, unbidden. Suddenly the memory of eating his first rhynadon steak was blacked out. Then the memory of him playing catch with Lee was served in like manner._

_He screamed anew._

_Layers of bestial instinct were beginning to cover up his feelings, his memories. The unclean thoughts began to replace his._

_The buzzing increased, and his memories began to be transposed at a terrifying rate. The thing in his head attempted to cover up his memory of Raquel._

He screamed out again, and clutched Raquel's memory to himself savagely. The bestial intelligence sharing his brain guffawed and began to pull at Raquel's face with intangible hands. He pulled back harder, struggling. Then, perhaps growing bored of the game, the monster sharing his psyche ripped the face of Raquel away from his mind. The unclean thoughts, the savage instincts, the inhuman desires again began to penetrate his mind. Then, it all stopped. He was no longer there. He had no idea what had happened.

_But he did know one thing though... he lived to serve the Swarm._


	3. Chapter 1: Departure of the Alliance Fle...

**_STEEL, SOUL, AND SPIRIT: FALLING DARKNESS_**

By

Gregory P. Wong

* * *

**Chapter 1: Departure of the Alliance Fleet**

* * *

Executor Straas looked over the landscape that he was about to depart from. Sawea was a beautiful world, a perfect place to raise a family...

He turned away from the window. He couldn't rest, no yet. And he couldn't leave his children there either. Ulreathan's Thres'nalop forces might pay a visit...

He heard thumping steps coming up from behind him. He looked behind him, and saw his wife, Szcraa, walking up to him. Like him, she was a Cyberlisk, a cyborg.

Her upper body was that of a mutated hydralisk, though her arms ended in four-clawed hands. A scythe was retracted over her wrists.

Her flesh ended at about one-and-one-half meters down, where double-jointed Goliath III legs and lower body took over. She stood three meters high. He was little taller than his wife. The specially built Goliath-III legs were weaved with special sensors, giving him as much sense as his skin.

A tail projected out of the rear of the metal, serving as a heat sink. Twin plasma cannons were slung over her shoulder, though currently folded over her back. His and her chest could open and fire explosive-laced Magna Needles. Their own bodies could manufacture the biological explosives, if they were feed sufficiently.

"It's a pity to leave this place, love," said Szcraa. Her orange tinged carapace caught the sun a certain way, giving her a glowing appearance.

"I know. But we have to hunt for those Thres'nalop. And our children won't be safe unless you or I are with them," he replied.

Their children were strange beings. The triplets, two males and one female, had been born with strange appearances. Stanton, named after a heroic Terran Ghost, looked _almost_ like a green-eyed, blond-haired Terran toddler, except for some minor differences. His skin had a slight blue tinge to it, and the blond hair growing from his head appeared similar to spines. He had stroked Stanton's hair; it was as soft as could be hoped. Perhaps the hairs would harden in time. He was not sure if he that those type of hairs pliable or firm. Visible on his son's wrists were twin scythes that could extend at will. It would be hard to keep his son from slicing things up.

Kitheran, son number two, looked like a Protoss. The skin was a little on the reddish-brown side, and the back of the elongated Protoss head was slightly flattened. Instead of knobby Protoss feet, his legs terminated in three-clawed feet, similar to his father's. The body of Kitheran was more muscled than the Protoss norm, and like Stanton, he had wrist-scythes.

Yysthre, last to be born and the only daughter, looked remarkably like a Cyberlisk. She was born completely organic, and her lithe build reminded him of her mother. The little female's carapace was a dark shade of gold, with metallic blue streaks running down her flank. And her eyes were a deep and beautiful blue. Like her similar mother and father, she had Magna Needles and, like her siblings, scythes that could be molecularly rearranged.

The three had characteristics of all three known races, so one name wouldn't be enough. That had been Khalai Rethoj's idea, actually.

Stanton's "Protoss name" was Vereas, and his Zerg name was Aarrcht. Kitheran, also Andrew, had the Zerg name of Zavast. And Yysthre had the Terran name of Diana, and the Protoss name of Mythril.

Their children showed remarkable development, packing the growth of a few years into only a few months.

"You mean only you. Who was the one that defeated Ulreathan?" asked Szcraa.

"Let me ask you this: could I have defeated _anything_ while I was dead." That was a long story.

"No one..." murmured his wife.

He looked down at his wife's right arm. She was wearing the armband of obsidian crystals, a nuptial gift from their wedding. The armband had once been an ornament of the Dark Templar Esralath. His gift from her, a golden colored headband, had once been the property of the Assault Commander Traenid, now part of the Gray Archon Traenid/Esralath.

"Executor. Fifteen minutes until departure," said Deneras, the helmsman of the _Phantasm_. The flagship of the former Executor Traenid/Esralath was now his.

"Thank you. I will be in the command room in five minutes."

The Templar nodded, spun around, and headed for the command bridge of the carrier.

He slipped his arm around his wife's waist. Szcraa put her head on his shoulder. They just stared out on the landscape for a few moments. Then they headed off to the command deck.

* * *

Assault Commander Szcraa looked out the window as the _Phantasm_ powered through space. The fleet escorting the flagship was impressive.

Four new Terran _Nova­-_class dreadnoughts coasted on either side of the flagship. The three remaining battlecruisers from the battle of Waj Norhal had been converted into dreadnoughts. At good 50 percent larger, the craft were very impressive, both defensively and offensively.

The Protoss and Terrans had been working extensively with singularities, i.e., black holes. The Protoss had had some success, using singularities to make a Dragoon's attack more potent, but that was about it. However, with Protoss know-how, and Terran ingenuity, the singularity laser was born.

Drawing energy from a sealed black hole, the lasers were nearly five times more powerful than the normal lasers that the former battlecruisers had carried. The Decimator laser batteries could rip apart class-X neosteel in seconds. To defend against fighters, pulse lasers were introduced. Using accurate and rapid pulse cannon tech, the Terrans had combined it with reliable and hard-hitting lasers. The pulse lasers dealt out heavy damaged, and at speeds normally only allowed to Protoss Seraph interceptors. Metasteel, a combination of Terran neosteel and Protoss alloys, offered nearly unbreakable protection, while heavy Protoss plasma shield emitters shrugged off damage.

Next to the eighteen dreadnoughts were thirty _Centurion_-class destroyers. They had been upgraded from the older _Samurai_-class destroyers fielded by the Waj Norhal defense garrison. From all she knew, the rest of terran space did not know about the destroyers. Waj Norhal had completely and exclusively made them. The destroyers, only a few dozen meters smaller than the old Terran battlecruisers, were decked out in anti-ship and anti-fighter weaponry. Photon torpedoes could rip apart heavy armor, and heavy pulse laser batteries could swat fighters from existence. Also equipped with shields

Lastly, the humble _Maverick_-class corvettes were also introduced. The corvettes, which resembled miniature Valkyrie frigates, were armed with four batteries of Stinger lasers. Though primarily used as skirmishers, they made excellent hostile-insertion shuttles. Small shield generators extended the life of the rugged ship.

The Terrans were not the only ones to have new ships, she knew. Shifting her gaze, she looked out at the Protoss section of space.

Cruising along with the speed of a frigate, were twenty-four Protoss _Phalanx_-class strike cruisers. Their four forward facing rear wings housed revised antimatter cannons. However, revised should not mean weak. The combined firepower of a _Phalanx_ was nearly equal to that of a larger and slower dreadnought. Though the cruisers had far less durability, they were incredibly fast. The skinny, pointy-nosed craft zoomed out ahead of the _Dragon_-class carriers. Those were indistinguishable from the _Phantasm_. The external changes had not been drastic to the older carriers, except for a size increase. Some pulse laser point defense systems, and a several Stormreaper singularity laser batteries, to fend off close range fighters and light ships. Not too many external changes. However, internally they were quite revolutionary.

Normally, Protoss carriers could transport a maximum of seventy interceptors. They could launch a maximum of twenty-four; any more and the carrier would lose control of the drones. Now, the _Dragon_-class carriers could hold one hundred-fifty, and launch _eighty_ Seraph interceptors. The extra throw weight from the sixteen carries could mean the difference in battles.

She turned away from the sight of the ships, and took a seat next to Straas'.

"We're ready to perform a hyperspace jump, Executor," reported a Khalai.

"Of course. Proceed."

With a push of a button, the fleet jumped into hyperspatial travel. Szcraa hoped that the Alliance fleet could perform and _survive_ the task it was about to perform. Only time would tell...


End file.
